The Essential Role of Mental Models in HCI: Card, Moran and Newell

Overview

In the formative years of HCI in the early1980s, researchers explored the idea that users form mental models of computer systems which they use to guide their interaction with the system. This was a powerful concept because it meant that if the authors, as interface designers, understood what kind of model the user constructed as well as the process of constructing it, the author could make computers easier to use by developing systems that were consistent with that model or that made it easier to construct the model.